Military funeral for the Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher tried hard to keep Fiji in the Commonwealth after the 1987 coups. Picture: FILE

Update: 10:37AM MARGARET Thatcher's funeral will be at St. Paul's Cathedral, with full military honours, followed by a private cremation, the British prime minister's office announced.

Mrs Thatcher served from 1975 to 1990 as leader of the Conservative
Party. She was called the "Iron Lady" for her personal and political
toughness.

She won
the nation's top job only six years after declaring in a television interview,
"I don't think there will be a woman prime minister in my lifetime."

During her time at the helm of the British government,
she emphasised moral absolutism, nationalism, and the rights of the individual
versus those of the state -- famously declaring "There is no such thing as
society" in 1987.

Nicknamed the "Iron Lady" by the Soviet press
after a 1976 speech declaring that "the Russians are bent on world dominance,"
Thatcher later enjoyed a close working relationship with US President Reagan,
with whom she shared similar conservative views.

But the British cold warrior played a key role in ending
the conflict by giving her stamp of approval to Soviet Communist reformer
Mikhail Gorbachev shortly before he came to power.

"I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business
together," she declared in December 1984, three months before he became
Soviet leader.

Having been right about Gorbachev, Thatcher came down on
the wrong side of history after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, arguing against
the reunification of East and West Germany.

Allowing the countries created in the aftermath of World
War II to merge would be destabilizing to the European status quo, and East
Germany was not ready to become part of Western Europe, she insisted in January
1990.

"East
Germany has been under Nazism or Communism since 1930. You are not going to go
overnight to democratic structures and a freer market economy," Thatcher
insisted in a key interview, arguing that peace, security and stability
"can only be achieved through our existing alliances negotiating with
others internationally."

West German leader Helmut Kohl was furious about the
interview, seeing Thatcher as a "protector of Gobachev," according to
notes made that day by his close aide Horst Teltschik.

The two Germanies reunited by the end of that year.

A grocer's daughter

Mrs Thatcher - born in October 1925 in the small eastern
England market town of Grantham - came from a modest background, taking pride
in being known as a grocer's daughter. She studied chemistry at Oxford, but was
involved in politics from a young age, giving her first political speech at 20,
according to her official biography.

She was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 1975,
when the party was in opposition.

She made history four years later, becoming prime
minister when the Conservatives won the elections of 1979, the first of three
election victories to which she led her party.

As British leader, Thatcher took a firm stance with the
European Community - the forerunner of the European Union - demanding a
rebate of money London contributed to Brussels.

Her positions on other issues, both domestic and foreign,
were just as firm, and in one of her most famous phrases, she declared at a
Conservative Party conference that she had no intention of changing her mind.

"To those waiting with bated breath for that
favorite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: 'You turn
if you want to. The lady's not for turning,'" she declared, to cheers from
party members.

The United Kingdom fought a short, sharp war against
Argentina over the Falklands Islands under Thatcher in 1982, responding with
force when Buenos Aires laid claim to the islands.

Announcing that Britain had recaptured South Georgia
Island from Argentina, Thatcher appealed to nationalist sentiments, advising
the press: "Just rejoice at the news and congratulate our forces."

A journalist shouted a question at her as she turned to
go back into 10 Downing Street: "Are we going to war with Argentina, Mrs.
Thatcher?"

She paused for an instant, then offered a single word:
"Rejoice."

Controversy over Falklands war

The conflict was not without controversy, even in
Britain.

A British submarine sank Argentina's only cruiser, the
General Belgrano, in an encounter that left 358 Argentines dead. The sinking
took place outside of Britain's declared exclusion zone.

In her first term, Mrs Thatcher reduced or eliminated many
government subsidies to business, a move that led to a sharp rise in
unemployment. By 1986, unemployment had reached 3 million.

But Thatcher won landslide re-election in 1983 on the
heels of the Falklands victory, her Conservative Party taking a majority of
seats in parliament with 42% of the vote. Second-place Labour took nearly 28%,
while the alliance that became the Liberal Democrats took just over 25%.

A year later, she escaped an IRA terrorist bombing at her
hotel at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton.

She was re-elected in 1987 with a slightly reduced
majority.

She was ultimately brought down, not by British voters,
but by her own Conservative party.

Brought down by the poll tax

She was forced to resign in 1990 during an internal
leadership struggle after she introduced a poll tax levied on community
residents rather than property.

The unpopular tax led to rioting in the streets.

She married her husband, Denis Thatcher, a local
businessman who ran his family's firm before becoming an executive in the oil
industry, in 1951 - a year after an unsuccessful run for Parliament. The
couple had twins, Mark and Carol, in 1953.

She was elected to Parliament in 1959 and served in
various positions, including education secretary, until her terms as prime
minister.

Thatcher was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom by
President George H. W. Bush in 1991, a year after she stepped down as prime
minister. She was named Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven after leaving office.

She retired from public life after a stroke in 2002 and
suffered several smaller strokes after that. Her husband died in June 2003.

Though her doctors advised against public speaking, a
frail Thatcher attended Reagan's 2004 funeral, saying in a prerecorded video
that Reagan was "a great president, a great American, and a great
man."